French Holocaust memorial damaged in act of vandalism

Published: MARCH 18, 2024 13:44

Updated: MARCH 18, 2024 14:09

A cattle car, used to carry Jews to Auschwitz, on display at the site of the Drancy internment camp in France, 2006. (photo credit: JPCUVEILLER/CC-SA 4.0 INT/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en) — A cattle car, used to carry Jews to Auschwitz, on display at the site of the Drancy internment camp in France, 2006.

(photo credit: JPCUVEILLER/CC-SA 4.0 INT/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

the Paris suburb of Drancy was the site of a World War II internment camp for Jews, where they were held until deportation to German extermination camps.

A facade for the Shoah Memorial in Drancy, France was damaged in an act of vandalism last Tuesday, said local authorities.

The Seine-Saint-Denis Prefect Jacques Witkowski condemned the smashing of the glass window, the prefecture said Tuesday.

#Condamnation Jacques Witkowski, préfet de la Seine-Saint-Denis, condamne avec fermeté les dégradations commises cette nuit sur la façade du mémorial de la Shoah à #Drancy @Prefet93 s’indigne de cet acte antisémite qui vise un lieu de mémoire. pic.twitter.com/iV9cEoxNNw
— Préfet de la Seine-Saint-Denis (@Prefet93) March 13, 2024

"The Seine-Saint-Denis Prefecture is outraged by this antisemitic act which targets a place of memory," the local authority said on X on Wednesday.

Holocaust memorial at the site of the Drancy internment camp, where Jews where taken en route to German death camps, 2006. (credit: JPCUVEILLER/CC-SA 4.0 INT/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

Drancy was an internment camp for Jews en route to death camps

The Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CFIF) and the European Jewish Congress said on Wednesday and Thursday that the targeting of the Drancy memorial was aimed at erasing the memory of Holocaust victims and the history of antisemitism.

According to the memorial center, the Paris suburb of Drancy was the site of a World War II internment camp for Jews, where they were held until deportation to German extermination camps. Between 1942 and 1944, "approximately 63,000 of the 76,000 Jews deported from France went through Drancy."